The Light That Ends The Dark

"Yes... Ahhh, yes. M- mmm, our homecoming. Yes..."


Of the Saints that were gathering here, the man of Bastards was uncharacteristically reserved as their Revered Cardinal led the vanguard unto the heart of their goals. His mind was elsewhere, pondering, drifting, as it so often did. Wherever Pompey was, even if it was not necessarily here, in the midst of twilight, it was bringing a crooked smile to the man's face. His arms swayed, at first appearing like he believed himself conducting an unheard choir, oblivious to whatever the rest of his peers were doing. Then, Pompey's arms paused, before lowering in prayer. He gazed out on the bleak horizon. It was quite the opposite, in fact. Blinding light marked the air, emphasized by the many pillars that each of the Saints, Pompey included, had arrived in. He stood poised over the Mitsumiya District, solemn and resolute. He closed his eyes. Only then, could he see-

The field of red, orange, and black rises before you, a conflagration of iron and sulfur. It assaults your lungs, filling it with the anguish you visited upon these people, so devout and just in your ways. You know yourself to be true, the only truth against those who would defy the will of the Lord. Yet, you see these flames, and you see reflected in them your soul. It is a black and vile thing, as burned away as the spikes upon which you visited judgement to the scores of guilty before you. This hubris does not matter to you; it never had. The only succor is the vengeful euphoria, through which you may yet hope to reach the ultimate revelation. You will do no such thing. There is but the eternal gaze of damnation, upon yourself by your own making. It would be pitiful, were it not in the name of the righteous.

"As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.

Once the verse had concluded, Pompey opened his eyes, sighed... and began to chant.




Below, all that could hear the Holy Word lost control of their physical selves. They flailed, their bodies obeying the dance of the man behind that most holy voice, whether it caused them torment or otherwise. Those who could not yet hear this blessing would find themselves torn apart by those who had become one with the will of the Bastard. Limb from limb, axe to stomach, flame to skull, it mattered little. Pompey left such details to the inner turmoil of the troubled minds behind these frail vessels. He was but the Humble Medium, dictating the way through which the uninitiated ought to bring themselves closer to the Lord. That was why he was here, after all. It was the only conceivable reason that any of them were here. They were Saints of the Holy See, driven by the singular will of the Lord Almighty. Indeed, he had sent wayward souls to this hovel of the rising sun so long ago, and was met only with cruel indifference. Now, the Lord was returned, in the most holy of vessels. Providence, indeed, for that primal treasure to be here somewhere. There was no mistaking that presence. Pompey had known it for years, decades even. The Lord shrouded many answers in parable, but not this. For what was the Saint of Bastards without his cold fate?

And, alas, what was the Saint of Bastards without his idolatrous bird? She was here, somewhere, certainly. The cage had at last been opened, much to the chagrin of its keeper. Whatever he thought of her wings (and he thought quite little), she was a dutiful heretic, wedded to him as Icarus to Daedalus. She would fly - had flown - and would fly further still. Whether she consumed herself with her errant fancies was not up to him, Sainthood or no. Responsibility was a precarious thing, especially where the fairer and scandalous sex were involved. But, so long as their purposes were intertwined, he would just as well make use of Isolde's apocryphal flight, and all the delusions that followed in her wake. He knew not how, or where, and he needed not such details. He left this minutiae in her possibly capable hands, small and meticulous for that which was beneath the notice of Bastards. Pompey would occupy himself with the Kirchenlied; no one else was capable of that choral mastery, after all, least of all his second. The lesser tasks, like plundering that heretic abode yonder for curios towards Pompey's prize, were best reserved for the Apostles, aspiring sycophants that they were. Dear Isolde was no exception.